Budding managers need to think global, says Baring Private Equitys Munish Dayal

As Indian industry becomes a global player, students need to learn more about the global context and broaden their horizon. They should understand management in the global context. Mr Dayal, an alumnus of FMS, was speaking at the FMS commencement program on July 2.

Narrow geographical thinking can restrict opportunities and scope for development and growth of students. MBA graduates should not restrict themselves to knowing and thinking about Indian companies only. They should open up their mind and understand the different global issues like the labor movement, politics, economics, stock markets, corporates etc You should know what is the Asian plan of PepsiCo, and what is IBM planning in the US. After all your final placements will be with global companies, he advised.

MBA programs gives an opportunity for a wide exposure but its hard for student to achieve their ambitions unless they know what they want. While advising students to be more focused about their goals, Mr Dayal said, To become a successful manager students should know what exactly they want -- what is it that they want to achieve through MBA. He went on to give an example of a Wharton MBA student who sought a summer internship at Baring India recently. This person was so well aware of his career goals that he sought a very specific project in Biotechnology in India, while leaving another general project with a leading US company.

Commenting on the FMS advantage, Mr Dayal said, I have recruited at the best global B-schools like Harvard and Kellogg -- but FMS students always come up with lots of academic inputs. FMSs rigorous academic program is its advantage.

Mr Dayal has been associated with leading banking and financial institutions like Citigroup, Yes Bank and now Baring Private Equity for close to two decades. Baring is one of the pioneers in providing private equity capital in India. It has a track record of over 30 successful transactions in more than 20 companies. It has a series of firsts to its credit: Baring was the first fund to conclude a management buy-out of a listed company in Asia, the first cross-border M&A (merger and acquisition) in the country and the first VC (venture capitalist) to invest in the Indian BPO sector.